Fraud isn’t the right description. Fraud, at least in my jurisdiction, has specific elements. When you:
1: make a statement or representation that you know is false, that
2: you intend to deceive others with, for them to rely on your false statement, that
3: your statement is materially false (that your false statement is not just something trivial or puffery), that
4: the defrauded party does in fact rely on your false statement, that
5: this causes damages, and that
6: you benefit from this misrepresentation
The fact that they did not benefit makes this not fraud. Also, just a glance at it, it would seem hacking is closer to theft than fraud. Still, not a lawyer, take this as a 1L pretending to know what he’s talking about.
Is this technically fraud, given that it’s not real money and the loss was potential earnings (and it’s likely fully-reversible too)?
Here here the loss of potential earnings stuff airways grinds my gears
Fraud isn’t the right description. Fraud, at least in my jurisdiction, has specific elements. When you:
1: make a statement or representation that you know is false, that
2: you intend to deceive others with, for them to rely on your false statement, that
3: your statement is materially false (that your false statement is not just something trivial or puffery), that
4: the defrauded party does in fact rely on your false statement, that
5: this causes damages, and that
6: you benefit from this misrepresentation
The fact that they did not benefit makes this not fraud. Also, just a glance at it, it would seem hacking is closer to theft than fraud. Still, not a lawyer, take this as a 1L pretending to know what he’s talking about.
No money is “real”
Video game currencies technically hold just as much value as fiat currencies in theory.